Aircraft control systems typically use aerodynamic models and/or data derived from such models to control aircraft actuators, such as propeller, lifts fans and other vertical flight rotors, ailerons, elevators, flaps, rudders, and the like during flight. The aerodynamic model represents the aircraft and its geometry, including actuators and their location relative to other structures; aerodynamic surfaces such as wings, tails, stabilizers, etc.; and the aerodynamic effect of other structures, such as the fuselage, pylons, etc.
Typically, aerodynamic models are generated through wind tunnel testing or computer simulation, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based simulation. However, wind tunnel testing is expensive and time consuming. It requires access to a wind tunnel and a prototype must be built to perform the testing. Wind tunnel testing through the range of operating conditions and aircraft states required to generate a complete model may be time consuming and expensive. CFD-based simulation does not require a wind tunnel, but even using parallel/distributed computing resources such simulations can take a considerable time to run to completion. For a complicated aircraft, for example, having many actuators, a single simulation may take three days to run on hundreds of processors. Thousands of such simulations may need to be run to generate an aerodynamic model that is comprehensive enough to provide a reliable flight control system.